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REPRINT  AND  CIRCULAR  SERIES 

OF  THE 

NATIONAL  RESEARCH 
COUNCIL 


THE  USEFULNESS  OF  ANALYTIC  ABSTRACTS 
By  GORDON  S.  FULCHER 

CORNING  GLASS  WORKS 


Reprinted  from  Science,  Vol.  LVI,  No.  1459, 
Pages  678-680,  December  15,  1922. 


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Hi-printed  from  SCIENCE,  pages  678-680,  Vol.  LVI, 
No.  1459,  December  13,  1922. 


THE  USEFULNESS  OF  ANALYTIC 
ABSTRACTS 

THE  various  ways  in  which  preliminary  ab- 
stracts should  be  of  service  to  scientific  readers 
were  pointed  out  about  a  year  ago1,  but  whether 
such  abstracts  as  actually  prepared  and  pub- 
lished Avould  'be  worth  while  could  be  deter- 
mined only  by  experiment.  This  has  been 
done.  After  analytic  abstracts  had  been  ap- 
pearing in  the  Astro  physical  Journal  and  the 
Physical  Review2  for  over  two  years  the  fol- 
lowing return  post-card  questionnaire  was  sent 
by  the  chairman  of  the  Division  of  Physical 
Sciences  of  the  National  Research  Council  to 
each  reader,  with  the  request  that  he  under- 
score in  each  parenthesis  the  word  or  words 
which  represent  his  answer  to  the  question  im- 
plied : 

I  look  through  (the  Astro-physical  Journal,  the 
Physical  Review)  regularly.  Before  reading  the 
articles,  I  read  the  abstracts  (always,  usually, 
sometimes,  seldom,  never).  Instead  of  reading 
the  articles,  I  read  the  abstracts  in  (many,  some, 
few,  no)  cases.  The  abstracts  have  helped  me 
understand  the  articles  in  (some,  few,  no)  cases. 
The  abstracts  have  proved  useful  in  locating  in- 
formation in  (some,  few,  no)  eases.  I  read  the 
subtitles  in  the  abstracts  first  (sometimes,  never). 
I  find  the  subtitles  of  value  as  an  index  of  the 

i ' '  Scientific    Abstracting "   by   G.    S.    Fulcher, 
SCIENCE  54,  291,  September  30,  1921. 

2  The  preliminary  abstracts  in  the  Physical  Re- 
view are  called  "Synopses"  to  distinguish  them 
from  the  abstracts  of  papers  presented  at  meet- 
ings which  are  printed  in  connection  with  the 
proceedings  of  the  Society. 
•i 


abstract    (sometimes,    never).      The    abstracts    in 
general  give  (too  much,  too  little,  about  enough) 
information.     I   think   they   should   be   continued 
(yes,  no). 
I  have  the  following  suggestions  to  make: 

Replies  were  received  from  805  readers, 
including  83  readers  of  the  Astro  physical  Jour- 
nal, 502  readers  of  the  Physical  Eevieiv,  and 
220  readers  of  'both.  Although  the  answers 
from  the  three  groups  have  been  tabulated  sep- 
arately, the  results  are  so  nearly  the  same  for 
each  that  only  the  results  for  all  readers,  that 
is,  the  percentages  of  all  readers  answering 
each  question  in  each  alternative  way,  will  be 
given  here.  Since  some  replies  are  incom- 
plete, the  sum  of  the  percentages  is  usually 
less  than  100. 

1.  How  frequently  are  the  abstracts  read  be- 
fore the  articles? 

always  by  41.9  per  cent,  of  readers, 

usually  by  45.9  per  cent,  of  readers, 

sometimes  by  9.9  iper  cent,  of  readers, 

seldom  by  2.1  per  cent,  of  readers, 

never  by  0.2  per  cent,  ef  readers. 

100.0  per  cent. 

2.  How    many   abstracts   are   read    instead   of 
the  articles? 

many  by  44.5  per  cent,  of  readers, 

some  by  39.7  per  cent,  of  readers, 

few  by  9.5  per  cent,  of  readers, 

none  by  2.6  per  cent,  of  readers. 

96.3  per  cent. 

S.  How  many  abstracts  helped  in  understand- 
in  (j  the  articles? 

some    helped  58.1  .per  cent,  of  readers. 

few      helped  17.7  per  cent,  of  readers, 

none     helped  11.8  per  cent,  of  readers. 

87.6  per  cent. 
—  2  — 


4.     How  many  abstracts  have  proved  useful  in 
locating  information? 

some  useful  to  ;>9.3  per  cent,  of  readers, 
few  useful  to  16.6  per  cent,  of  readers, 
none  useful  to  11.4  per  cent,  of  readers. 


87.3  per  cent. 

5.     Should  the  abstracts  be  continued? 

yes  92.8  per  cent,  of  readers. 

HO  4.0  per  cent,  of  readers. 

96.8  per  cent. 

Since  the  abstracts  are  read,  always  or  usu- 
ally, by  88  pev  cent,  of  the  readers;  are  read 
instead  of  many  of  the  articles  by  45  per  cent, ; 
and  have  been- found  helpful  in  other  ways  by 
59  per  cent.,  they  have  evidently  proved  of  de- 
cided value.  In  what  ways?  According  to  the 
testimony  of  the  readers:  "They  are  great  time 
savers";  "They  frequently  give  all  information 
necessary  about  the  articles";  "They  double  a 
man's  range  of  reading."  Moreover,  the  ab- 
stracts have  'been  copied  verbatim  in  Science 
Abstracts  and  have  rhus  reduced  the  labor  of 
preparing  that  abstract  journal  by  ten  per 
cent.  The  abstracts  have  therefore  to  seme 
extent  fulfilled  their  purpose  of  saving  the 
time  of  scientific  men. 

How  about  other  sciences?  Are  astronomy 
and  physics  essentially  different  from  chem- 
istry, botany,  zoology,  geology,  physiology, 
etc.,  in  their  methods  of  disseminating  scientific 
information?  If  93  per  cent,  of  the  readers 
of  these  as.tronom.ical  and  physical  journals 
find  that  preliminary  abstracts  are  useful  to 
them,  would  not  the  great  majority  of  other 
scientific  readers  also  find  such  abstracts  use- 
ful? The  responsibility  resting  upon  the 
editors  of  other  scientific  journals  is  clear. 

Now  as  to  the  nature  of  the  abstracts  which 
should  be  provided.  The  abstracts  which  have 


been  appearing  in  the  Astro  physical  Journal 
and  Physical  Review  are  of  the  analytic  type 
developed  by  the  National  Research  Council.3 
They  aim  to  give  a  complete  description  and 
adequate  summary  of  the  results  reported  in 
each  article.  The  replies  to  the  question: 

6.  Is  the  amount  of  information  given,  in 
general,  about  enough,  too  little,  or  too  much? 

about  enough  79.8  per  cent,  of  readers. 

too  little  6.7  per  cent,  of  readers. 

too  much  4.8  per  cent,  of  readers. 

91.3  per  cent. 

these  replies  indicate  that  the  abstracts,  aver- 
aging from  5  to  6  per  cent,  of  the  articles,  have 
been  of  about  the  right  length,  and  it  is  not 
believed  they  could  be  made  much  shorter  with- 
out considerably  decreasing  their  value. 

A  distinctive  feature  of  the  abstracts  is  that 
they  contain  italicized  subtitles  wnich  give 
the  various  subjects  involved  more  completely 
and  precisely  than  in  general  it  is  possible  for 
the  author's  titles  to  do.  One  purpose  of  these 
subtitles  is  to  enable  a  reader  who  is  not  inter- 
ested in  the  subject  indicated  by  the  author's 
title  to  determine  by  glancing  through  the  sub- 
titles whether  something  of  interest  to  him  has 
not  been  incidentally  included.  Until  readers 
became  accustomed  to  these  subtitles,  however, 
it  was  to  be  expected  that  most  readers  would 
consider  them  more  of  an  annoyance  than  a 
help;  but  the  following  replies  show  that  a 
surprising  percentage  of  the  readers  have 
already  found  the  subtitles  useful: 

7.  Do  you  ever  read  the  subtitles  in  the  ab- 
stracts first? 

sometimes  64.1  per  cent,  of  readers. 

never  17.5  per  cent,  of  readers. 

81.6  per  cent. 

3  Described  in  ' '  Scientific  Abstracting ' '  re- 
ferred to  a.bove. 

—  4  — 


8.  Do  you  ever  find  the  subtitles  of  value  as 
an  index  of  the  abstract? 

sometimes  G3.0  per  ceut.  of  readers, 

never  12.7  per  cent,  of  readers. 

75.7  per  cent. 

Since  the  subtitles  also  serve  the  purpose  of 
assisting  in  the  compilation  of  a  complete  sub- 
ject index  and  tend  to  insure  more  complete 
abstracts,  it  is  believed  this  feature  should  be 
retained.  Only  three  readers  definitely  objected 
to  the  form  of  the  analytic  abstracts. 

It  is  the  practice  of  both  these  journals  to 
submit  all  authors'  abstracts  to  an  abstract 
editor  to  be  revised  or  of  necessary  rewritten, 
in  conformity  with  the  standards  adopted. 
While  a  few  authors  have  objected  to  having 
their  abstracts  "robbed  of  individuality,"  a 
number  of  readers  specially  called  attention  to 
the  importance  of  having  the  abstracts  edited 
so  that  a  uniform  standard  might  be  main- 
tained. It  can  safely  be  affirmed  that  since 
most  authors  are  inexperienced  in  writing  ab- 
stracts and  also  differ  widely  in  their  ideas  of 
the  function  of  the  abstract,  authors'  abstracts 
if  not  thoroughly  edited  are  sure  to  fall  far 
short  of  rendering  the  service  which  prelim- 
inary abstracts  should  render,  even  if  detailed 
instructions  are  furnished.  But  after  the 
edited  abstracts  begin  to  appear  regularly,  they 
gradually  establish  a  standard  to  which  authors 
will  conform  more  and  more  closely  as  time 
goes  on,  and  therefore  the  amount  of  editing 
required  will  become  less  and  less. 

Finally,  mention  should  be  made  of  the  sug- 
gestion of  several  readers  that  larger  type  be 
used  for  the  abstracts  than  has  been  the  cus- 
tom. Since  more  people  read  the  abstracts 
than  read  the  articles,  it  would  seem  obvious 
that  the  type  of  the  abstracts  should  be  at  least 
as  large  as  that  of  the  articles. 


It  should  not  be  long  hefoi'e  all  scientific 
journals,  in  fulfilment  of  their  duty  toward 
their  readers,  provide  carefully  prepared  pre- 
liminary abstracts  of  their  scientific  articles. 
There  can  no  longer  be  any  doubt  of  the  value 
of  such  abstracts.  It  remains  only  to  over- 
come the  practical  obstacles  to  the  introduc- 
tion of  the  new  policy. 

In  conclusion  we  desire  to  express  our  thanks 
to  the  805  readers  whose  cooperation  gave  us 
the  information  herewith  reported. 

GORDON  S.  FULCHER 
CORNING  GLASS  WORKS 


6  — 


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